Monday, September 29, 2014

A Space Of Our Own


I've missed this space in recent months. I miss how it fills me up and allow me to share my words/myself and meet so many amazing readers and writers.

This is the only place I can share my words, who I am, and who I wish to be without harsh judgement. Maybe others judge in private, in which case, that is fine with me. They move on. They stop reading. I never know.

Though it has never happened to me, some might judge in public. And if they did, I would simply delete their harsh words right off this page. It's my space, after all. But trolls ... they don't seem to come here. I thank them for staying away.  

I choose what I wish to write about. What the border looks like. The template. The photos. I choose the books and writers I want to read and celebrate. There's no editorial calendar. No one waits with a deadline and a finger wag. There are no request for revisions or stamp, stomp, DENIED.

No one tells me my words aren't funny enough or commercial enough or interesting enough. (And, hooboy, I know I've written some posts that have been real doozies.) Though I've tried not to, I've probably said stupid or uninformed things throughout the years. But I own them. They are mine.

My revelation, today -- and it answers a question others have asked me, a question I've asked myself, why do you bother? why do you blog? -- is that there is no other writing space in the world where this is the case. Maybe a journal but, with a journal, there's no opportunity for someone to whisper, or maybe shout, yes or me too or I understand or I don't or have you seen it this way? and it opens my eyes to how you and I fit together in this world, whether we're linking arms or laughing or nodding or wondering or pointing one another toward a new understanding.

This isn't me signing off, it's me signing in. Maybe it's the glop of love hormones from baby boy, but it's me saying thank you for reading my words and for letting me read yours. In this small corner of the universe, we have a space that is all ours. 

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Brooklyn Bridge


I found this miniature Brooklyn Bridge along the sidewalk yesterday.

It made me happy to stand above it and look down.

Monday, September 1, 2014

September and finding my place


For me, it's not about the new year but September. September is when I begin again and make a fresh start. In the northeast the school year begins after labor day and, when I was a girl, new things came with that start: a new teacher, a first day of school outfit, a new book bag, and blue-lined notebook pages, blank and ready and eager.

We'd rearrange our desks in a new classroom and, with the new set up, our friendships would adjust themselves accordingly. I'd find myself in between the quiet girl or the cool girl or the gross boy who finger-pinned and flipped his eyelids and these people would become my day, my week, my year. 

We are, I think, whether we like it or not, creatures of proximity. I wonder who and what I will align myself with this year.

I know I'll make a new start with a novel I've been dreaming. Since Little O's birth I have discovered I will always make time for writing in all the hours between everything else. I'll let go of sleep or television or cleaning (the dust...my floors...you would be appalled.) 

What I do need to make time for...is the paying work. Or I should say, I need to find that work. Work that fulfills me, gives me a paycheck, and allows me to spend a majority of my week with my son. I don't know that such work exists but I have given myself this year to find it, a luxury I planned for, but a luxury still, and I search and wonder and interview and let the world evaluate who I am and who I could be, how I might be useful or useless and the hours fade and the days fall into one another and I wonder where I'm headed at all.

Having a child, leaving my job, I find myself outgrowing the life I once built. My work. My apartment. My neighborhood. My city. In so many ways, I'm caught inside a life that no longer makes sense for me. Maybe this is what it's like to grow up. I don't know. 

Looking out into my future, seeing a long, wide expanse of unknowns is not easy but, I guess, it's a part of moving forward. Moving on.

It's September and my notebook is open and blank and the world rearranges itself around me. I look forward to finding my place inside it all.